When he was twenty-three years old, Johnny made his move. No one knows why he finally decided to head west. Maybe he’d heard that the Holland Land Company was selling land in Pennsylvania. Maybe he’d heard promises that treaties with the Native Americans had made travel safer.
Whatever his reason, he began hiking west toward Pennsylvania in 1797. His supplies included a gun, an ax, and a bag of food. He walked barefoot and probably stuck to smaller trails, which he liked better than main roads.
Several new towns were forming in the Pennsylvania wilderness. River transportation was easier than overland transportation in those days. So most early settlements began along rivers. Johnny headed for the town of Warren on the Allegheny River.
The weather was good when he started out that November. But as he reached northwestern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, it began to snow. He tore cloth strips from his coat, wrapped them around his feet, and walked on.
Soon the snow was three feet deep. It was dangerously cold and getting too hard to walk. Johnny pulled branches from nearby beech trees and wove them together. He couldn’t stop for long or he’d freeze to death. Quickly, he made a pair of crude snowshoes. He strapped them to his feet and walked out of the snowstorm.
When Johnny reached Warren, he discovered it wasn’t much of a town. It turned out to be just one log cabin with a land salesman living inside. Still, he was probably glad to find shelter for a while.
Johnny had already collected apple seeds from cider mills he passed in Pennsylvania. That winter, he explored the area around Warren in search of a good place to grow apple trees. He didn’t aimlessly scatter his apple seeds everywhere, as some people think. He planned to plant small fruit farms called orchards.
By the spring, he had chosen a good spot. He planted his first orchard along the Brokenstraw River, which branched off from the Allegheny River just west of Warren.
There were rules for claiming land in Pennsylvania. You had to pay for it, for one thing. But that wasn’t all. You also had to build a cabin and raise a crop on it. Johnny tried to establish land claims but found that doing so was hard. Land boundaries were unclear and laws were confusing.
So like many other frontier settlers, Johnny became a squatter. That meant he didn’t buy or lease land. He planted on land owned by others or on unclaimed government land. Some landowners lived far away and never knew he was using their land. He made deals with other landowners to trade part of his crop for use of their land.
Unfortunately, the market for apples wasn’t very good in Warren. Within a year, he planted another orchard. It was located fifty miles southwest on the Allegheny River, near the town of Franklin. Many settlers passed through Franklin on their way west. It was a better market for his apples, and he worked there several years.
Except for visits from his half brother Nathaniel, Johnny’s life was hard and lonely at this time. He slept in hollow trees or under blankets of leaves. One winter, he only had nuts to eat.
DANIEL BOONE
(1734–1820)
DANIEL BOONE WAS BORN IN 1734, FORTY YEARS BEFORE JOHNNY APPLESEED. LIKE JOHNNY, HE SPENT MUCH OF HIS LIFE ROAMING THE WOODS OF THE FRONTIER. UNLIKE JOHNNY, DANIEL MADE HIS LIVING HUNTING AND TRAPPING BEAR, DEER, BEAVER, AND OTTERS.
IN 1769 DANIEL FOUND A SECRET PASSAGE THROUGH KENTUCKY’S CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS. HE HELPED BUILD THE WILDERNESS ROAD, WHICH LED THROUGH A MOUNTAIN GAP. THIS WAS A BIG HELP TO PIONEERS BECAUSE THE GAP WAS WIDE ENOUGH FOR THEIR WAGONS TO PASS THROUGH. THE CUMBERLAND GAP BECAME ONE OF THE GATEWAYS TO THE WEST.
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